2024-04-05 04:00:29
While the poor quality of the water in the Seine is at the heart of discussions in the run-up to the Olympic Games and pressure is mounting to ensure the safety of athletes, it seems essential to take advantage of this spotlight on this emblematic river to support a profound philosophical and legal reflection: the recognition of the rights of the Seine, but also our ethics and our responsibility towards our environment.
For several decades the Seine has been an object of anguish and political promises, whereas it should be a legal subject that is inseparably biological and cultural. The Seine is the cradle of our history and a natural jewel, which should no longer be considered as a waterway, a drinking water reserve, a swimming place or a sewer.
She is so much more than that. The Seine is a living entity, a community of fertile interdependencies, to which our existence and well-being are intrinsically linked. Recognizing the rights of the Seine means recognizing our interdependence with it, and affirming its right to exist, to prosper, to flow freely, not to be polluted and to be restored when its health and integrity are affected.
Read the survey: Article reserved for our subscribers Granting rights to nature, a legal revolution that is shaking up our vision of the world
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Because the Seine has suffered for centuries from pollution, from the artificialization of its banks, from thousands of structures, dams and thresholds which prevent it from flowing freely. Now it is affected by climate change. It is high time to establish a fair and lasting relationship with the Seine, and not based on the usefulness, efficiency or economic yield of this river for certain human interests.
In the footsteps of Ecuador and New Zealand
Faced with a similar situation affecting many rivers around the world, a growing number of governments, communities and civil society organizations are seeking to reverse the trend by recognizing and upholding the inherent rights of nature.
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This is the case of Ecuador, which included the rights of Mother Earth (Pachamama) in its Constitution in 2008, and of New Zealand, which adopted a law protecting the rights of the Whanganui River, legally defined as “an indivisible and living whole”. This is also the case for our Spanish neighbors, who, in 2022, voted for a law for the Mar Menor lagoonrecognized as a person endowed with the right to exist and evolve naturally, in order to ensure respect for the “ecological laws” which govern it as an ecosystem in the face of environmental imbalances caused by pressures of human origin.
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